A Modern Day Phantom of the Opera
by Viscountess Ko
Summary: Set in NYC, Christine and Meg are roommates. Erik's still an opera haunting recluse with a past as a mercenary for various dictators. Raoul probably owns a yacht and is a giant sweetheart. Vignettes in non-linear order. Occasionally fluffy, humorous, dramatic and anything in between. Background characters from the stage show occasionally make appearances!
1. The Trip

Some of you might be familiar with my Modern Day Phantom AU through my tumblr (in which case, hi again!). If not, it's a pretty straight forward ALW musical based story set in Modern Day NYC/The Met Opera. Updates will not be in chronological order (they're a lot like snapshots of moments or events in the character's lives as the story we're familiar with moves forward) and generally vary in length. A link to the artwork, costume design and background information for the story is in my profile!

* * *

Christine had been moving around in a daze since the opening night of Il Muto three weeks ago, still in shock over what had happened. She never could have imagined that her Angel of Music could be capable of murder, and yet Buquet's lifeless body dangling from the rafters had been enough to fuel her nightmares almost every single day. She woke up in cold sweats so often that Meg had taken it upon herself to move into her bedroom and Raoul onto the couch in the living room, despite it being almost a head too short for him to stretch out comfortably. Yet he kept guard faithfully over both Christine and Meg, hoping it could at least give her enough peace of mind to get any sleep at all.

After the curtain call on the closing night of Il Muto, Christine sat alone in her dressing room, her dresser having hung the bulky lavender Countess costume on the rack for the last time and rolled it out of the room for storage. She took down her pincurls and raked her fingers quickly through her hair, settling the wayward twists. As she carefully blotted at her make up with the wipes, she heard a knock on her door.

"Come in!" she welcomed after making sure the belt of her robe was secured. Raoul burst through the door excitedly, his face obscured by a large bouquet of assorted pastel flowers, having been careful to avoid roses. She took them from his arms and gave him a quick peck on the cheek, glancing around her dressing room to try and find a place for more flowers.

"Beautiful as always, darling. Absolutely beautiful."

'Thank you, Raoul," she replied, sounding rather tired. The rest of the cast would be having a small get together to celebrate a successful run, but Christine didn't feel up to it. Especially not when she knew there had been whispers about her ever since the incident with the _Opera Ghost. _She knew she had earned her place at the Met through her own skill and determination, so it had been no skin off her back when her relationship with Raoul hit the gossip columns, but being associated with something so heinous and gruesome as a murder was too much. Looking at the dark circles under her eyes, she saw the exhaustion taking its toll. "Is it wrong that I don't want to go to the party? They're my friends and colleagues… but I just don't think I could handle it."

"I was hoping you'd say that!" Christine threw him a scandalized look, a small smile tugging at her lips and Raoul flushed. "No, let me rephrase… I asked you a few weeks ago to come away with me, just get away from here for as long as you needed. And you said you had to stay to finish the show. So now the show is over and I'm asking again… let's go, tonight." She had begun to shrug off her silk robe, picking up the dress thrown over the back of her chair.

"Where are we going?" Christine relented, turning around and picking up her long hair for Raoul to help her with the zipper.

"It's a surprise!"

"Well, I need to pack, don't I?"

"And ruin the spontaneity of it all?"

"And have completely realistic expectations of preparations that need to be made for travelling? Like my toothbrush. And clothes. And maybe a sweater, _if_ I knew where I was going."

"…okay fine, I told Meg where we're going already packed for you," Raoul finally admitted. "But you do realize I have an American Express Black Card right? We could just new clothes. Or just a new toothbrush. You know, whatever you want."

A few minutes after the pilot announced that they would be getting ready to land, Raoul stood up to grab something from their luggage, returning with Christine's favorite red scarf.

"It might be a little windy when we touch down," he handed her the scarf, which she wrapped around her shoulders.

"Raoul… so help me, if your idea of a romantic getaway is this plane landing in the middle of Antarctica, we're going to have words," she teased, her eyes almost sparkling in the dim lighting. He was relieved that even just several hours on a plane seemed enough to rouse her from the general state of melancholy and constant worry she had been in for the last few weeks.

"We're not going to Antarctica. Although I did spend some time there and I can personally attest to how romantic it is."

Christine sat back against the leather-upholstered chair, putting her hand on Raoul's as the aircraft began its descent.

Raoul noticed that Christine seemed more relaxed than she had in weeks, most of the tension finally draining from her shoulders when the plane took off. He knew that she had spent the last three weeks feeling unsafe and terrified not only for her own safety but his, and he had been able to send a car to take her and Meg home every night, but she still extremely anxious.

He had hoped that he was doing the right thing by offering to take her as far away from it all as possible and any concerns about his plan were finally alleviated in that moment, feeling Christine's slender hand clasping his and he looked over to see her smiling peacefully. Had she looked out the window, she might have seen the slightest silhouette of the Parisian skyline as they made their way to Brittany.

Christine and Raoul walked in silence along a quaint uneven road, their isolation punctuated only by a few kids running through the street shouting excitedly in French, with Christine only able to make out a few words from the short time she had spent in the country.

"We've been walking for fifteen minutes now, are you going to tell me where we are or do I have to start deducing?"

"You could do that…" Raoul replied, hardly able to contain his excitement, wondering if his grin had somehow already ruined the surprise.

"Okay, the taxi driver spoke French. The signs are in French. The locals speak French… clearly we're in Argenti…" Christine trailed off, at a complete loss for words when she realized exactly which part of France they were in.

They had stopped right by a cliff overlooking a calm French sea, the wind less harsh than it had been that fateful day almost ten years ago. The day she had met Raoul for the first time, she was just a little girl running through the sand on a very windy day, having gotten bored of sitting at her father's side while he played the violin for the tourists. It had been the same routine for months and even at 10 years old, she tired quickly of doing the same thing every day. Several older boys kicked around a soccer ball a few yards away. A gust of wind blew in, dragging her loosely draped scarf into the water. She hardly had time to curse how careless she had been with her mother's scarf when one of the teenage boys flew past her, almost a blur as he ran to dive into the water swimming in swift broad strokes before reaching the scarf where it had been deposited by the wind and turning back.

She was still sitting dumbfounded in the sand when he jogged back to her, almost completely out of breath, but he grinned proudly, holding out the soaked scarf to her.

"I was just fourteen and soaked to the skin…" Raoul's voice from behind brought her out of her reverie.

"Because you had run into the sea to fetch my scarf," she responded, echoing her response to him from the day they had reunited, her voicing breaking slightly from the emotion. Turning to face him, she saw that he had gotten down on one knee with small ring box in his hands.


	2. The Slavemaster

I wasn't kidding about background stage show characters making appearances (in this case, the Slavemaster is the male dancer in the Hannibal Ballet). :P And a quick reminder that these vignettes are not being posted in order of when they occur in the story.

* * *

The moment Madame Giry dismissed everyone from rehearsals, Meg and Christine tripped over each other in their mad dash to beat the other back to the dressing room. Meg reached the door first and triumphantly threw it open and Christine stomped in behind her, mock disappointment in her every step. Collapsing into her chair, Christine tried to put off the inevitable battle with her pointe shoes for as long as humanly possible.

Eventually Christine sat up and struggled to undo the knot on her ribbons while Meg had long kicked hers off and was already buckling the strap on one of her shoes.

"High heels? After a rehearsal?" Christine raised an eyebrow, knowing exactly what that entailed when it came to Meg. "Who's the lucky guy?"

"Well…" Meg blushed and shot a quick look through the open door where Sergei was standing in his street clothes, the very picture of nonchalance. Christine did a double-take of almost comedic proportions when she saw.

_Somehow,_ despite Giry asking him to stay behind a few extra minutes for notes, he was already sporting dark green jeans, a close-fitting black t-shirt, a well-worn leather jacket and a pair of brown boots combat boots that Christine just wasn't entirely convinced hadn't seen the business end of a battlefield. He had his arms crossed and a pair of black Raybans obscured his customarily unfathomable expression. While the glorified loincloth he wore for his Slavemaster costume probably didn't take much work to change out of, Christine still struggled to wrap her mind around how he could already be standing there fully dressed when she was still trying to take off her other shoe._Who even wears sunglasses in doors?_

"No!"

"Yep! It's actually been three weeks now, I didn't want to tell you until I was sure it was something… and it's definitely something," Meg's voice trailed off happily and she worked on tousling out her post-rehearsal hair.

"Oh, Meg I'm so happy for you!" Christine started to say something else, but then bit her tongue.

"What's wrong?"

"It's just…" Christine dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper and Meg leaned in to listen. "I swear I have never seen that guy smile."

"Oh Christine, Sergei totally smiles. Watch," Meg said, tilting her chair back so she could get his attention. "So how about sushi for lunch?"

"Sounds great."

And to Meg's credit, he did smile… however briefly.


	3. Breakfast in Bed

Christine blinked her eyes a couple of times before it registered that she was not in her tiny, lumpy twin sized bed, nor was she looking at the faded floral wallpaper that covered the room of the tiny bedroom in Williamsburg she called her own.

What she woke up to was the softest pillow top mattress she'd ever sunk into and sheets so smooth she felt entirely justified in describing them as the physical embodiment of a kitten's purring. She sat up yawning, looking around the room as she stretched. She was surrounded by the relative simplicity of cream-colored walls that met the similarly colored ceiling with intricate crown molding. On the wall directly across from the bed hung the painting of a boat in the ocean. All the furniture in the sizeable but cozy space was made of the same dark hued wood; despite its plainness, she could almost swear she saw the exact same set in the window of a showroom on Fifth Avenue some months ago. A book titled _Staying Afloat in This Economy by Philippe de Chagny _sat on the nightstand next to the bed… a book Raoul seemed to be using as a coaster. Sunlight flooded in from open French doors that opened into a small balcony with wrought iron rail overlooking a beautiful spring day high above the park. She edged farther forward on the bed to get a better look out the window. While the sight of joggers and children riding bikes was a ubiquitous sight in almost any park in the city on a day like this, what she was looking at was unmistakably Central Park. And the cacophony of taxis honking and birds chirping certainly confirmed it.

Still groggy and just the tiniest bit hungover from overindulging in last night's champagne, she ran her fingers through her hair and tried to detangle the mess it had become after she'd slept with all the bobby pins still in it. The pillow next to hers seem curiously undisturbed, something she pondered until the door open and Raoul walked in carrying a large tray, laden with a tall glass of orange juice, coffee, waffles, toast and more pastries than there were plates.

"Good morning Christine! How did you sleep?" he greeted with a huge grin.

"No Raoul, you don't understand…" she groaned. "You're not allowed to be this sober after a five scotch night…"

"Christine, I was in the Navy. We drank scotch for breakfast." Raoul chuckled and set down the tray before settling at the foot of the bed with the food sitting between them. He picked up a croissant and watched as Christine dumped as much cream as would fit in the cup into her coffee as she could.

Maybe it was just the misplaced glee she felt at having reunited with him after all these years, a piece of her past still completely intact, but she couldn't help but think he looked like sunshine. Unkempt sandy blonde hair came down below his ears and he wore a light blue plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up with a simple a pair of dark jeans. In that moment, he looked like the fourteen year old boy who caught a cold after running into the sea for a scarf and less like the intimidatingly rich patron of the Met Opera he apparently grew into.

"Raoul, I _love _this café. I think I only mentioned it once… I'm really impressed," Christine said, recognizing the logo on the sugar packet before blushing and covered her mouth with her fingers when she realized she was talking with her mouth full of raspberry muffin. She always felt shy eating around people other than Meg because she would remember papa always reminding her to chew like a lady and never speak with her mouth full.

"Really? _Well_, you are going to be more impressed when you find out I actually made something on that tray," he declared proudly.

"Is it the burnt toast?"

"It's the burnt toast."

* * *

Also "Staying Afloat in this Economy" _sounds_ like it's a helpful book, but is mostly Philippe inadvertantly Marie Antoinetting everyone. "Can't afford the mortgage on your house? Just sell your summer home in the Hamptons to renovate your main home."

Other names I came up with for Phillippe's book include:

"How to Stop Drowning in Debt"

"Sink or Swim: How I Learned Not to Need My Dad's Money"

"Don't Let the Waves Pull You Under: Why the Recession is Only Temporary"

"Treading Water: A Memoir of How Hard It Was to Grow up De Chagny"


	4. Enter Hannah Prince

Galas hosted by the Met could hardly be described as, dull affairs even if assorted socialites _did_ upon themselves to show up halfway through the event, each determined to show up more fashionably late than the last. And until the gaggle of photographers following the more high profile guests piled through the gates, the party was generally a good chance to catch up with old friends before the pressures of the new season hit.

Hannah Prince sat quietly at a table with a flute of champagne when the circle of reporters that surrounded Carlotta Giudicelli and Ubaldo Piangi suddenly seemed to scatter and race to a pair of newly arrived guests. She chuckled and reveled in the highly offended look on their resident prima donna's face. Hannah took one look at the subject of all the commotion and scoffed, deciding that this was a good time as any to go powder her nose.

Unsurprisingly, Christine Daae showed up on the arm of the Raoul de Chagny, notorious playboy, trust fund kid extraordinaire… and unfortunately, one of the Opera's biggest donors.

She hated it when people referred to her terse situation with Christine Daae a "feud." A feud implied some sort of balance, that the other side made concessions every once in a while, or at the very least, that one party wasn't so woefully unmatched against a soubrette dating the son of the company's most influential patron _and _somehow under the wing of the extortionist that had been running the producers mad for the last eight seasons.

She sighed, not wanting to go back out into the party. Clearly no announcement had been made yet, but if Christine thought wearing that boulder of an engagement ring on a necklace was going to keep people from noticing, she was in for an unpleasant surprise in the papers the next morning.

Frankly, she was tired. She was tired of the drama, and of the whispers that involved her too. Lefevre's sudden retirement three months ago took everyone by surprise. All she remembered thinking while he gave his little farewell speech was how unprofessional it was, interrupting a rehearsal to drop a bomb like that. Had she anticipated the sequence of events that followed she would have spoken up only seconds earlier, but that of course was the cruel beauty of hindsight.

Carlotta's infamous temperament and over-the-top demands had forced the directors to delay the casting of the official understudy for the role of Elissa while her reputation and name allowed her to get away with such flamboyant behavior. Yet there was an understanding in the higher echelons of the company that Hannah was first in line for the position, and to that end she had even been working with Reyer to learn the score on her own time.

The moment of the impromptu audition was still etched into her brain, her hands mere _inches_ away from accepting the silk scarf the wardrobe mistress held out her. And then all that hope and excitement shattered like a teapot when the squeaky little voice of one of the ballet girls decided to pipe up "_Christine Daae could sing it sir!_"

Hannah looked into the full length mirror one more time, adjusting the small fan shaped hair pin in the delicate upsweep of her auburn hair, shaking the memories away. This was a night of celebration. The terrorist with a penchant for the arts and a flair for the dramatic hadn't shown his face since the night of Buquet's murder and the only thing left to do was put it all behind them.

Turning and walking from the powder room, the teal train of her black sequined dress trailed behind her, the unacknowledged and consistently forgotten soprano wondered how much of a new start the new year would bring.

* * *

Hannah Prince is of course a play on the Hannibal Princess character from the stage show. Right before Meg volunteers Christine for Elissa, she can be seen talking to the other characters and trying to audition for the role herself. She's always been quite fascinating to me, so a story from her POV just snowballed.

The fundamental thing about her is that this is a woman who's worked hard, who's worked her way up from the very bottom rungs of college productions and regional theatre to land a contract with the Met Opera, and not just that, but she was literally on her way to getting a big principal role after ALL this work she's put in. She's a hard worker, people get along with her, she doesn't ever miss rehearsals, etc.

Then Christine comes in, and sure she's got a good voice, but how does a CHORUS GIRL who barely made the cut to get into the cast last season land the world renown La Carlotta's role? And she's always distracted in rehearsals when she isn't late. And on top of all that, dating the patron doesn't exact help any one give her the benefit of the doubt.


	5. No Going Back

A number of cast members who had no business being on deck straggled in the wings, each peering past curtains and between set pieces to try and catch a glimpse of what brought the performance to a halt. Still in costume for the gypsy dancer she played in _Don Juan_, she threaded herself and the wide skirt through the crowded area, shaking her head in annoyance. If there was barely enough room for the actors, there definitely wasn't any extra for the additional undercover law enforcement scattered throughout the backstage area dressed as stagehands. Meg stood on her tiptoes, trying to see over the shoulder of several of the actors, all watching the scene unfold in a sort of fascinated horror. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest as she watched her best friend quite literally backed into a corner. When Christine tried to exit while the Phantom was turned away, the stage manager urged her to stay onstage and stick to the plan.

Then all at once there was pandemonium when a terrified Christine had ripped the mask off his face, something that barely had time to register before a small explosion went off on the right side of the stage and they fled off into the wings. In the immediate chaos that followed, a trigger-happy police officer fired several shots in their direction, missing the retreating Phantom by several inches and Christine by a lot less. Out of the corner of her eye, Meg saw Raoul more or less tackle that same officer for firing so haphazardly in Christine's direction. She pushed through the crowd of hysterical people running in the opposite direction and raced across the stage behind the backdrop hoping the shortcut would avoid the rest of the panicking cast and crew. Only able to barely make out Christine's salmon colored costume in the unlit area, Meg desperately tried to keep the pair in her sight. Without looking were she was going, she ran into a solid mass on the ground and looked down just in time to scream at what… or rather _who _she had nearly tripped over. In the time it took her to recover from the shock, they had long disappeared.

She was still in a daze when the cops pulled her aside, insisting that they needed a statement from her in order to get a clear understanding of what transpired that evening. Meg watched with stunned, tear-filled eyes as they lay her friend and colleague on a stretcher, but was mostly grateful when the young policeman trying to interview her was called away to attend to something more pressing. The rookie gestured for her to stay put and she gave him a placating smile.

"Wanda…" Meg called to her dresser, her voice sounding hollow in her own ears. Somehow through all the chaos and horror, she heard Meg and stumbled over. "…could I ask you to bring me my clothes and boots? I'm in a bit of a hurry."

To her relief, Wanda was too much in shock to question such a bizarre order, comprehending only her urgency and running off immediately. Meg had already started stripping off the heavy gypsy costume she had worn for Don Juan, throwing aside her coin covered headscarf, and dropping the heavy silk and brocade skirt. Moments later, Wanda came rushing down the hallway with Meg's boots, shirt and jacket, tossing her the pants before even reaching her, pants that Meg snatched out of the air and started putting on.

"Where did he take her?" Raoul came barreling down the hallway in her direction, having long given up on trying to get the attention of the investigator who was clearly overwhelmed by this many things going wrong at once as well as the interdepartmental pissing contest that only added to the chaos. Detective Porter had initially refused to listen to Raoul when he suggested the threat level be raised "_for some moron who gets his rocks off haunting an opera house_" and that The Phantom was more than just a murderer and extortionist, but a terrorist. In hindsight, getting the CIA, FBI _and_ CTU involved was quite frankly, a terrible fucking idea.

"I know where they went," Meg's firm voice broke out amidst all the yelling. She had finished pulling her shirt on and accepted her jacket from Wanda, continuing in the opposite direction of the chaos, determined to slip away from the police who would not be any help to them until it was too late. "Are you coming or what?" she called over her shoulder, shrugging on her jacket as she went. From what must have been a hidden pocket, he saw her pull out a large SOG knife and unsheathe it.

"I…" Momentarily dumbfounded, it barely even occurred to him that he hadn't actually seen one of those blades since his days in the military.

"Get a move on, De Chagny! We have to go save my friend," she said with a steely determination. Shaken from his temporary lapse in focus, he cleared the distance she had left between them in several quick strides. He resolved to get Christine out of this alive, no matter what it would cost him.

* * *

This was originally done in response to a prompt of "What if Madame Giry never stopped Meg from going down to the Lair?" So take this installment as you will.


	6. Music in the Morning

Christine tossed and turned on the verge of waking up, trying to find a comfortable position to hold on to sleep for just a few minutes longer. Tugging the sheet higher up over her shoulder, she turned to her side and tried to back slide into its warm embrace. However, there was no shaking soft but unmistakable dulcet sounds of a music box playing a tune so delicate it didn't feel fair to ignore it.

The music seemed to stop all at once the moment she opened her eyes, leaving her surrounded by the disconcerting quiet of a Sunday morning and filled with the queasy uncertainty one suffered when they were unable to place whether things took place in a dream or in real life. Christine sat up on the oversized chaise, and leaned against the myriad of richly decorated and miraculously undisplaced cushions. She tried to shake away the haziness that still seemed to cloud her head and make sense of what had happened last night.

The Angel of Music was a man, that much she felt sure of. She had seen him with her own eyes… or rather, she had seen shadows and haze, recalling a masked figure in the dark recess of those dream-like thoughts. A part of her still held on to the belief that he was the heaven sent guardian her father promised her. She just couldn't believe there was any other way to explain the unearthly beauty of his music.

Realizing she did not in fact know where she was, Christine actively regretted not having called Meg who probably just assumed she had spent a second night in a row at Raoul's place. Even having never met the guy until the other night, no one had wholeheartedly supported the rekindling of that childhood connection quite like Meg.

Reminded of her very real surroundings and the very real life she had to get back to, Christine pushed the sheet aside and examined her surroundings properly this time. The chaise she'd d used as a bed was made of black suede, soft to the touch as her bare arms brushed against the material. The only light that leaked in through dark heavy brocade curtains came from the afternoon sun. The space dwarfed her apartment by almost twice the size, but was largely empty with an ornate Persian rug that stretched across almost the expanse of the floor. The furniture in the room included only a few other old-fashioned chairs upholstered in dark red velvet and a long black end table, atop which sat a Japanese sand garden in a polished ebony box. Across from her was a bookshelf brimming with old books that stretched across the entire wall. She left her shoes by the chaise and padded over as quietly as possible even without any indication that Erik was anywhere in the area. Curiously exploring the shelf, she skimmed the titles of hundreds of old medical books that had been out of publication for decades. Mixed in with as many books on music theory as she had expected, she found biographies of history's most influential world leaders and much more surprisingly… chemistry and engineering texts, marked with pencil and nearly overflowing with graph paper notes.

Christine rushed to tuck the book back in, remembering her father telling her rude it was to snoop around another person's home when one is a guest. Her guilty conscience almost dropped the heavy volume when discordant piano music started up unexpectedly. Moving across the room back to her shoes, she slipped them on before following the loud chords into what had to be his study, somehow even larger than the room she had woken up in despite the fact that she was more or less concluded they were situated in a high rise and still in Manhattan.

Lingering at the threshold, she gasped when she saw Erik hunched over a piano. He was astoundingly human in every way… even if she had never exactly envisioned a magnificent set of white wings at any point in her tutelage. He wore a forest green dress shirt with the sleeves folded at the elbow and black suit pants. She was almost grateful that the sound of his playing masked her heeled footsteps. He stopped to furiously scribble notes on the score in front of him before putting the pen down and pausing to review his work. She came up behind him and watched the entire process, mesmerized.

Christine felt her confusion come back all at once, her senses flooded by the overwhelmingly surreal nature of the situation. She sat down softly next to him and reached to put a hand on his shoulder. He froze, paralyzed by her touch. She seemed to look right through him even as she drew her fingers down the line of his jaw, a gentle caress of his face. He hadn't moved and barely breathed, enthralled by her proximity. His eyes, golden in the dusky lighting, were thoroughly fixated on her. Even steadily holding his gaze, she found none of the clarity she had hoped for. _If he wasn't an angel, then who was he?_

Distress etched into her brow, she reached for the mask and removed it in one sudden and irreversible action, a move which drew an inhuman and guttural cry from him, utterly forlorn once it had registered. She almost tripped over herself in her desperation to get away from him, grappling with incomprehensible terror and trying to flee on knees that threatened to buckle. Erik leapt to his feet, sending the bench crashing to the floor, feral in his anger. He caught up to her easily, grabbing her by the wrist and wrenching her around to face him. Christine dropped the mask as he seized her other wrist in a vice-like grip and held her in place, forcing her to face him. She could feel herself on the verge of passing out from what she saw in those gnarled features, her mind struggling to process conflicting feelings of both horror and pity.

"No! Look at me Christine!" His anger ferocious as he held her tighter the more she struggled to turn away. "Isn't this what you wanted to see? You _wanted_ to look upon my face. I think it's only fair that you see what your actions have wrought!"

"I'm…" Christine tried to gasp out an apology, but her throat failed her and she felt herself start to hyperventilate.

"You took my mask, you _stupid child_!" He roared, punctuating every word and flung her savagely to the ground. "…what did you possibly think you would find?" he continued with a pained and condescending laugh.

She remained on the floor where she had fell in a crumpled heap, her arms and knees drawn into herself. In that moment, she honestly couldn't decide if she just wanted to disappear or simply survive his rage. Too ashamed to bring herself to look up at him, she remained there unmoving, save for the ragged heaving of her chest as she sobbed. Minutes ticked by before he collapsed too, brought to his knees by the realization of what he had done to her in his anger.

"Oh Christine… I loved you from the moment I met you," he confessed. "I am the farthest thing from an angel your God ever could have conjured… and up until the moment you saw this face, until knew what I really was… I dared to hope that you might love me too."

He tried to reach out toward her, only for her to shrink back in fear even further. Thoroughly admonished, he quickly drew his hand back as if burned by fire. Met by his own reflection in the shiny lacquer of the piano, he dropped his head in defeat at the reminder of what he was, of the monster he would always be.

Christine reflected on his words. Erik had lied to her all those months, abused her misguided faith and eagerness to believe that her father could have accomplished such an outlandish miracle. But she couldn't hate him, how could she even begin to feel anger towards someone who'd suffered so much? When all was said and done, she had violated his trust too and two mistakes didn't cancel each other out.

They only made for two very unhappy people.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Christine shift cautiously, watching him with a certain wariness in her eyes as she reached for the dropped mask that sat squarely between them. She picked it up and crawled towards him. Gingerly reaching for his hand, she placed it in his palm and closed his fingers around it.

"I'm so sorry, Christine," he finally spoke again, his words heavy with remorse. Only after she nodded tearfully did he dare to replace the mask over his face and look up at her. He stood, holding out a hand to help her up. "Did I hurt you…" he stopped himself and amended. "Are you injured in any way?"

She shook her head and took a deep, steadying breath.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry too."


	7. First Lady of the Stage

The fame and fortune afforded by being one of the best selling sopranos in the world allowed Carlotta to live very comfortably in a penthouse apartment on the upper west side in a building with a lovely green canopy over the main entrance and an art deco façade. She bored easily and changed the décor of her home with every season and was constantly hiring new interior decorators.

A reasonably early riser, she plucked a silk robe off the divan by her bed and walked out to the kitchen after her morning ablutions. Piangi was already seated at the table, looking nervous even as she bent down for him to kiss her on the cheek.

"What is wrong, darling?" she asked, her Spanish naturally more pronounced when she was around those she trusted not to mistake it for vulnerability. When she had gotten her first starring role at the Met, the papers had mistakenly reported her as being an Italian soprano, and even as a novice she knew to give the public what they wanted. Sounding like the over-the-top diva sold her image and that very image brought her some very lucrative contracts. Even though Piangi was from Sicily and she personally hailed from a small town outside of Barcelona, years of living together made it so that they understood each other even when one accidentally slipped into a few words of their respective native tongues.

"My love, there is something in the paper you will not want to see…" he began, nervously trying to butter a bagel with an empty knife. Carlotta's brow furrowed, not understanding the reason for Piangi's seeming overreaction. She took her normal seat at the table across from him and crossed her legs, waiting for the maid to bring over the kettle for her tea as she plucked a tea bag from the small chest an admirer from Turkey had gifted them some months ago. Refusing to be cowed by anything the media had to say about her tantrums, Carlotta took her time enjoying the aroma of her beverage before sipping it. Across the table, her Piangi only grew increasingly antsy at her seeming lack of concern. Knowing Carlotta better than anyone, he knew her unaffected demeanor would not remain for long. Once she opened the paper, he quickly signaled for the maid to bring the broom and dustpan and held his breath.

"Unknown Ingénue Steps Up and Dazzles in Chalemeau's _Hannibal_?!" she shrieked, throwing her teacup against the far wall. The saucer followed and Piangi sighed, at least the dwindling sets they had left would still match. He made a personal note that they would pick up new ones the next time a tour took them to London. "What is the meaning of this?!"

Even understanding the rhetorical nature of her question, he tried to find an explanation for her. Piangi had always feared this day more than she did. Despite most of that prima donna personality being trumped up for the public's consumption, Carlotta rarely considered the implications of her behavior, having gotten her way too many times simply by virtue of her temper. Carlotta stood up angrily, scraping the chair back against the floor. She stormed off into her room, pausing only to see in the hall window that it had started to rain quite heavily.

When he caught up to her in the room, she had already thrown open the door to the walk in and was discarding dresses still on hangers almost as soon as she had pulled them off the railing. Finally, she seemed to settle on a fitted black and silver floral dress, a custom piece that had been made for her from a fashion house after the designer had come to see the performance.

Carlotta looked out the window of her lobby, checking for the fifth time in as many minutes to see if the town car had arrived yet.

And she was again greeted by the dense sheet of rain greying the street. Any other day she would have stayed in until she needed to be at the theatre for the evening's performance. Maybe she would have ducked out to a quick lunch with Ubaldo, but not today.

Not even an earthquake would stop her from confronting the idiot managers Lefevre left in his wake about the inexcusable affront to her reputation which greeted her on the front page of the New York Times Arts Section when she sat down for breakfast that morning.

When the black car pulled up to the front entrance, Carlotta allowed the doorman to escort her out to the car, holding up her umbrella for her to shield her from the pouring rain, leaving Piangi to trail behind.

To add insult to injury, she couldn't even remember someone named Christine Daae in the cast. It was only when she threw the crumbled newspaper into the backseat before her that she saw the innocuous white envelope trimmed in black and sealed in red wax.


End file.
